WordPress
In this post I will talk about the most popular CMS — WordPress.
It so happened that along with graphic design, I was also interested in web design. I was curious about coding and how to create something beautiful online.
My first and biggest project in life, which turned out to be quite successful, was Peopleofdesign, which I launched in 2006 right after finishing my studies. At first, the project ran on an unknown CMS that was discontinued a year later, so I had to move it to another platform. I was choosing between Drupal and WordPress. Since Drupal was more complex, I decided that WordPress would be the best option for my project.
I migrated the content, found a somewhat suitable theme, customized it to fit my needs, and then learned how to properly set up SEO. Peopleofdesign is still alive and growing today.
After that, I started looking for new projects, and whenever someone needed a website, I immediately recommended WordPress. I was always against website builders like Wix and Tilda, which were very limited — you couldn’t move your site elsewhere, customize everything exactly as you wanted, and if the platform’s policies changed, your site could be easily blocked. That never happens with WordPress.
My next big project was Fashion Federation — a magazine about fashion. I chose a more modern theme and then customized it to suit the project’s needs. The site quickly became popular, traffic increased, it loads super fast, images are optimized on the fly, and the entire code is fine-tuned for performance.
I won’t go into detail about every WordPress project I’ve built—there are a lot of them. Instead, I’ll highlight three: a portfolio site for architects, a catalog site for Panzeri, and a full-fledged online store for Generative Gallery.
DOBURO. A young architecture studio from Moscow with an impressive portfolio. They needed a stylish and user-friendly website that properly showcased their projects. Smooth scrolling, fast image loading without compression, SEO optimization, and an easy-to-manage backend were the key requirements. They got exactly that, and the site works great.
Panzeri. A showcase website for the Italian lighting brand Panzeri. The design followed the company’s main website. The goal was to create a convenient product catalog with a large number of items and variations. The result? Fast loading, well-structured filters, and a perfect WooCommerce integration. Some products have color choices, others have multiple variations, and prices are automatically converted from euros to rubles at the official exchange rate. Check it online.
Generative Gallery. This project, which originally ran on Readymag, needed a fully functional online store. The homepage features a carousel with categories, advanced filters, and product listings. Each product page is linked to its author, displaying their bio and other works. A lot of custom coding went into this. The store is equipped with payment and shipping modules, and all images are automatically optimized to serve in JPG, WebP, or AVIF. Check it online.
If a project like DOBURO can still be built on modern website builders like Webflow, then a complex showcase or an online store? Not really.
For those who are interested in building a WordPress website but have doubts (or are being discouraged), I’ve created a small landing page where I showcase WordPress capabilities and compare it to Webflow.
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